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Once step closer…

Last Friday was a packed day – first of all we received this in the mail….

That, my friends, is a pretty important piece of paper! It is the hard copy of our I800a approval. Basically, we are now approved by the United States government to adopt internationally from a Hague country. I am not sure if I explained what a Hague country is before, so just in case here is the official definition:

Hague- Hague is a collective of regulations and standards agreed to by various countries around the world, which standardizes the level of care, concern and ethics involved in international adoption. The United Statesis a Hague country.

This isn’t the approval to adopt a specific child (Max). We will have to complete that application later on down the road. Most people at this point in the process do not know who the child is they will adopt and wait to be matched once their paperwork is sent to China. We will probably end up knowing who Max is for a whole year before meeting him! Talk about a lesson in patience, perseverance and trust!

In about a week we should be able to send all of out paperwork to China (something called a dossier). Right now, it is being certified/authenticated by our adoption agency. Yippee!

And some more important news….

on March 28th (the same day we received our i800a approval) Dave and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary! It is hard to believe it has already been 5 years. I honestly can say they have been the best of my life. I love him more and more each day…

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We celebrated our 5 years by spending the weekend in Charleston! Dave planned the whole trip back in January and didn’t tell me until Valentine’s Day where we were going. It was soooo gorgeous and relaxing and fun and did I say gorgeous?! I love old architecture and design….my favorite part of the trip was just walking down Rainbow Row.

I’m lovin’ this Coral door

And for some reason this little house makes me so happy. I love how it was hidden behind some of the bigger houses, all nestled nice and cozy just ready for me to come and live in it.

We actually stayed in North Charleston, about 10 minutes from the city. We did lots of tours and dined at some fun restaurants all for free…yep, we got roped into one of those travel club presentations. It was not a “time share” presentation and we were in and out in about an hour….I’d say that was a good deal!

Here we are inside the boat on our Harbor Tour (It was a crazy windy day so we spent most of the tour inside the boat).

And where did the littlest Esh stay? With our AHHHMAZZING friends, Chad and Raeanne. Landon absolutely adores Rae Rae and Chad and had the time of his life with them. He has so much fun he keeps asking to go to “Rae Rae’s house” all this past week. Thank you so much for taking such good care of our little guy!

Well, I am off for now. Hopefully we will have more updates soon! Maybe some DTC (dossier to china) news!?